A fire door is generally a door with a fire-resistance rating. Fire rated doors and frames are necessary to keep persons safe and to minimize property damage during a fire. In particular, fire doors are used as part of a passive fire protection system to reduce the spread of fires and smoke between separate compartments of a structure and to allow persons within such structure to egress safely from a building or other structures such as a ship.
Many components of a door assembly must be fire rated to withstand fire for a specified period of time to achieve a fire rating. Such components include, door frames, window frames, hardware, transoms, sidelights, and glazing. For example, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 5,910,620 which describes a fire rated glass and method for making the same. In addition, a fire resistive glazing, sold under the designation Superlite II-XL, distributed by O'Keeffe's Inc. of Brisbane, Calif., is capable of obtaining a 60, 90, or 120 minute rating ASTM E119 rating. As heretofore described, it is important that the door frame also meet the guidelines of a particular testing agency to provide a fire rating for the doorset.
A fire door having an economically assembled door frame and fire rated glazing in the formation of a fire rated doorset would be a notable advance in the field of fire resistant building components.